Bowling
by betawho
Summary: The Doctor talks River into going bowling, trouble is, he sucks at it...


River pulled her arm back holding the heavy ball, stepped forward and swung, one leg sliding elegantly behind the other, her bum looking beautifully heart shaped in the tight fitting jodhpurs as her bowling ball rolled like thunder down the alley.

It crashed into the lead pins, just off center, and mowed down the whole swathe of bowling pins in one clamorous jumble.

"Strike!" River jumped around, fists in the air, bouncing with victory. Her hair and her breasts and her hips and the sparkle in her eyes all bounced together.

She was so happy he couldn't be jealous, even though she was having a nearly perfect game and he was having a lousy one.

She bounced down the slight step from the waxed floor in the atrocious bowling shoes, and pecked a victory smooch on his lips. "Your turn, Sweetie!"

She had groaned when he first suggested they try American bowling. The loud rattle of pinball machines and video games, the clash and clamor of balls being dropped in the aisles and pins tumbling and spinning, the squeaks of flat soled shoes on the polished floors and the hum of the ancient ball retrieval machines added up to a sound like a battlefield at a fair.

He could barely hear her speaking, but the delight in her eyes spoke for her.

She picked up her Coke and sipped through the striped straw, her eyes never leaving his over the cup, flirtatious, vital, absorbing, thoroughly enjoying herself.

He looked up at their scores and grimaced. It would be nice to get at least _one_ strike. A score would do, there was no shame in taking two balls to knock all the pins down.

The eight year old in the next lane pumped his fist and twirled as he knocked down the last of his pins. His family applauded him.

The Doctor poofed his chest out. If an eight year old could do it, then so could he. His chest caved in a bit. It would be nice to hear River cheer him.

He picked up his pink speckled bowling ball off the carousel, dried his fingers over the ancient, cranky blower, and fitted them into the holes in the ball.

He could do this. How hard was it? It was just geometry, he was _good_ at geometry; angles, velocity, piece of cake.

"Relax, Sweetie," River called her advice from her plastic seat beside the score screen.

Relax, right. Let it flow. Good clean motion, swing and release. His hands sweated, he rubbed them off on his trousers. Swing and release.

He twisted his slippery shoes on the floor, stepped forward, stopped, stepped back and started again; wrong foot.

He rushed forward the prescribed three steps, pulled the heavy ball back underhand, swung hard and let loose.

_Let loose!_

His sweaty thumb stuck in the hole, the heavy ball's momentum flung him forward into the lane, he hit the boards with an almighty smack! Arm outflung.

The ball slammed down on the boards, the jar popped his thumb loose and the ball rolled away in a leisurely meander, like a wandering drunken tortoise.

He lay in the aisle and put his hands over his eyes, too mortified to look, the eight year old's laughter ringing in his ears, the adults on all sides equally asking if he was okay, or telling him to get out of the aisle.

He peeked through his fingers. The ball rolled with a heavy "whomping" sound end over end, never quite managing to teeter into the gutter. The floor pressed hard under him, his ears burned hot with embarrassment, and the ball, just kept rolling, little by little down the aisle, losing momentum.

Until it finally rolled up to the center pin, and dinked against it.

Then all ten pins slammed backward, bouncing and clattering against the walls, like they'd been hit by a cannonball. His pink bowling ball rolled drunkenly sideways and fell in the gutter.

He twisted on the floor and looked behind him. River holstered her blaster.

"I think that's a strike, Sweetie."

—

God he loved this woman.

—

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